Last time I suggested THAT was in late 2008 when I figured that the Mats Sundin ship had sailed and that the Canucks could spend 8 million on the WCE (4 for Nazzy, 2.5 for Bert, 1.5 for Mo) instead as a solid 3rd or 4th line......for 1 year. Given that we had freed up money to play with, I didn't think it was a terribly bad idea at the time.

Island Nucklehead wrote:If the Sedins decline as fast as you say trading one of our goalies and our most productive D-man isn't going to save us. If the Sedins magically forget how to play hockey that fast we're fucked. Blow it up. Done.

As I stated, I don't think the twins will decline in a similar manner to the WCE. I clearly stated that I think the twins will still be very good players for years to come, but will most likely not be the 100+ point calibre players that they were last year and the year before (maybe one more season, but that's it). The point of my WCE analogy was to show a worst case scenario.......and that things can change insanely fast.

How often does Detroit go about trading their best assets for singular players? They are a great team because they AUGMENT their core and are better than the sum of their parts. They don't go out seeking out a new core entirely. Datsyuk had back to back 97 point seasons, and now is under a point/game guy. Is he on the decline? Should they be in a panic to find someone to replace him? I don't see them rushing to do so. I do see them signing depth pieces like Bertuzzi and Ian White, all the while continuing to draft and develop their own players.

Not often, but they have done this in the past (I.e. Keith Primeau and Paul Coffey for Brendan Shanahan). My idea doesn't involve seeking out a "new core entirely."

-Read that above statement-Now read that above statement again. -Our core is the twins, Kesler, Bieksa, and one of our current goalies. Period. We'd still have all that, and much more of our current team.

One reason why the Red Wings were able to continue their success, was because guys like Datsyuk and Franzen were successfully able to replace Yzerman and Shanahan as the top "alpha leaders"........which also allowed them to preserve their strengths and identity as a team. Depth and pieces are great, but you need those 1-2 top tier guys that can replace your current top 1-2 tier guys when the time arrives.

Tampa Bay has a ton of draft picks this summer. That seems a likely option for our goaltending logjam. A couple first round picks would go a long way to strengthening the organization's depth. And it is a far more realistic way to follow a Detroit model than what you're proposing. We should be looking to draft the next Giroux (22nd overall), James Neal (33rd), Jordan Eberle (22nd), Nicklas Kronwall (29th) etc. We don't need John Tavares this year or next, we need young, cheap, talented players for 3-4 years down the road.

I can agree with that, and that's a great point. Keep this in mind though - for every Giroux that's out there, most draft picks take much longer to develop. The twins for instance, took about 6 years to really come into their own. We could risk having 1-2 down years at some point (I.e. Kind of like we did when we transitioned from the WCE era to the twins era), but that's just my opinion.

Sorry Tiger - but I'm not sure if you want to be going down this road (I.e. Ridiculing others and/or acting arrogantly).

A few days ago in one of the Game day threads, Hockey Widow made an obvious "tongue-in-cheek post which everyone clearly understood except for you. I would even go as far as saying that anyone with a basic high school education would have understood the context in which Hockey Widow's comment was made. I can provide the link for everyone to see if you would like.

Farhan Lalji wrote:As I stated, I don't think the twins will decline in a similar manner to the WCE. I clearly stated that I think the twins will still be very good players for years to come, but will most likely not be the 100+ point calibre players that they were last year and the year before (maybe one more season, but that's it). The point of my WCE analogy was to show a worst case scenario.......and that things can change insanely fast.

Here's something to chew on. Neither one of the Sedins is a point-game player this year. We're still challenging for the President's trophy. Much of that is due to depth, and the development of guys like Edler (6th in Dman poitns) and Schneider (19-7-1, 2nd in Save %, 5th in GAA). You don't package these kinds of players off (along with our best C prospect) for shits and giggles. We have a logjam in goal. One of the goalies will probably have to be moved. That's certainly not an open door to moving out SEVERAL of your better performing players to augment something we already have (scoring centres). It's called redundancy, and it's one of the reasons we moved Cody Hodgson.

One reason why the Red Wings were able to continue their success, was because guys like Datsyuk and Franzen were successfully able to replace Yzerman and Shanahan as the top "alpha leaders"........which also allowed them to preserve their strengths and identity as a team. Depth and pieces are great, but you need those 1-2 top tier guys that can replace your current top 1-2 tier guys when the time arrives.

Bingo. Not now. As far as I know the Sedins are one year removed from back-to-back scoring titles and this team went to the Cup finals. That time isn't now, nor is it this offseason to start an organizational shake-up looking to find players to replace them. IIRC Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Lidstrom, Fillpula, Franzen, Holmstrom, Kronwall, Ericsson, Kindl and Howard were all DRAFTED by the Red Wings. Let's follow their model, shall we?

Tampa Bay has a ton of draft picks this summer. That seems a likely option for our goaltending logjam. A couple first round picks would go a long way to strengthening the organization's depth. And it is a far more realistic way to follow a Detroit model than what you're proposing. We should be looking to draft the next Giroux (22nd overall), James Neal (33rd), Jordan Eberle (22nd), Nicklas Kronwall (29th) etc. We don't need John Tavares this year or next, we need young, cheap, talented players for 3-4 years down the road.

I can agree with that, and that's a great point. Keep this in mind though - for every Giroux that's out there, most draft picks take much longer to develop. The twins for instance, took about 6 years to really come into their own. We could risk having 1-2 down years at some point (I.e. Kind of like we did when we transitioned from the WCE era to the twins era), but that's just my opinion.

Yep. They do take longer to develop. What's your point? We have a good team now. There's no rush to get anyone into the lineup next season.

Farhan Lalji wrote:Sorry Tiger - but I'm not sure if you want to be going down this road (I.e. Ridiculing others and/or acting arrogantly).

A few days ago in one of the Game day threads, Hockey Widow made an obvious "tongue-in-cheek post which everyone clearly understood except for you. I would even go as far as saying that anyone with a basic high school education would have understood the context in which Hockey Widow's comment was made. I can provide the link for everyone to see if you would like.

My point? Attack/criticize the post.......not the poster.

I don't think he gives a fuck. He's in Thailand puffing a gagger and driking a maitai with a 17 year old hooker on his lap while you are here in Vancouver in the pissing down rain tripping over bums and crack whores.

Farhan the basis of your thread seems to be the notions that the Canucks (no matter who is running the team or on the roster) are naturally an offensive team and that their failures to make the postseason after the lockout - and particularly in 2006 - were because the forward group didn't get it done.

Is that accurate? I'm going to just respond under the assumption that it is.

To me, both our playoff misses were the result of an injury-decimated defense. To be sure, both the 2005-06 and 2007-08 squads had some problems from the very beginning (goaltending and forward depth, respectively) but were in a position to make the playoffs and crashed when the injuries starting piling up in the defense corps.

(Take a look at this blueline from the game before the trade deadline in 2006 - in order of ice time: Bryan Allen, rookie Kevin Bieksa, Steve McCarthy, Sven Butenschon, Nolan Baumgartner. By the end of the season it was not significantly better, here is the blueline from the last game: Jovanovski - playing his 7th game since the new year, Carney, Allen, Ohlund, Baumgartner, Weinrich. Sure Naslund and Bertuzzi were disappointing that season and I am not trying to absolve those players of responsibility but you have to think that with better organizational depth on the blueline or with fewer injuries anyway we would have still made it into the postseason.

As for the 07-08 debacle it's a similar story - we used 11 defensemen and players like Aaron Miller, Mike Weaver, Lukas Krajicek, Nathan McIver.. Kevin Bieksa was - understandably given the abdominal injury and then skate cut - awful when he wasn't missing entirely, Salo missed almost 20 games and Ohlund almost 30, Willie Mitchell played through a fractured vertebrae before sitting ten games... Would an elite center have helped here? Of course, but he would have helped even more if he could play a few games as a defenseman.)

Ultimately I think the Canucks have had other problems in the last few years that have caused them trouble: poor forward depth on the roster meaning that if a key player isn't scoring nobody else does, poor organizational depth on defense meaning that two or three injuries means we are unable to ice a decent roster let alone drive the offense from the blueline like the team prefers, lack of an actual starting goaltender.. these have all been addressed by the current GM and he's given most of us confidence to think that if other weaknesses make this team vulnerable, they'll be addressed as well.

Would it be great to go out and get the kind of player you're talking about, that would guarantee this team wouldn't have trouble in the future - an extra elite first liner, if you will? Of course, and if the right deal crops up you always pull the trigger. But the type of player you're talking about is extremely rare, and given you have provided one example thusfar (and it's a player a troubled franchise have pinned their entire future on) I think we all know that trade is probably not coming without a colossal overpayment. The most reasonable and most likely course of action is to flesh out the prospect group with players who have high ceilings, and who could be key contributors to a top team a few years down the road. Those players are often available in the draft and occasionally via trade and free agency and it would appear our GM is actively seeking those types of players out.

So if the question implied by the acknowledgement that Ryan Kesler will never win the Art Ross trophy is "would you like to have John Tavares [or another player with a similar pedigree and career trajectory] on this team," then yes I sure would. If the question is "would you offer whatever it takes to acquire John Tavares [or another player with a similar pedigree and career trajectory]," then I would almost certainly not.

Farhan Lalji wrote:Sorry Tiger - but I'm not sure if you want to be going down this road (I.e. Ridiculing others and/or acting arrogantly).

A few days ago in one of the Game day threads, Hockey Widow made an obvious "tongue-in-cheek post which everyone clearly understood except for you. I would even go as far as saying that anyone with a basic high school education would have understood the context in which Hockey Widow's comment was made. I can provide the link for everyone to see if you would like.

My point? Attack/criticize the post.......not the poster.

I don't think he gives a fuck. He's in Thailand puffing a gagger and driking a maitai with a 17 year old hooker on his lap while you are here in Vancouver in the pissing down rain tripping over bums and crack whores.

Bingo .. except she's a doctor of the ripe old age of 23 .. Be back in Canada for the playoffs.. when its time to give a fuck

My 2 cents is that me thinks Kesler's Monster Season last year was an anomaly, ie the 41 goals, and that Kesler is back to being the prototypical, proverbial two-way-centre (25 goals a year, 65 points etc.) he has always known and projected to be in the NHL.

"I just want to say one word to you. Just one word. Are you listening? - Plastics." - The Graduate

Tiger wrote:Bingo .. except she's a doctor of the ripe old age of 23 .. Be back in Canada for the playoffs.. when its time to give a fuck

A 23 year old Thai doctor.

Sounds like someone might wake up without a kidney one of these days.

LOL... She was late to get to the Sunday night hockey game here . ( Yep a hockey fan too ) .. reason? She is an intern at Bangkok Hospital and assisting in an operation to re attach a penis to a guy that was cheating on his girl friend.. She tells me they do that operation about once a week in Bangkok...So am being a very very faithful guy..

Tiger wrote:Bingo .. except she's a doctor of the ripe old age of 23 .. Be back in Canada for the playoffs.. when its time to give a fuck

A 23 year old Thai doctor.

Sounds like someone might wake up without a kidney one of these days.

LOL... She was late to get to the Sunday night hockey game here . ( Yep a hockey fan too ) .. reason? She is an intern at Bangkok Hospital and assisting in an operation to re attach a penis to a guy that was cheating on his girl friend.. She tells me they do that operation about once a week in Bangkok...So am being a very very faithful guy..

RoyalDude wrote:My 2 cents is that me thinks Kesler's Monster Season last year was an anomaly, ie the 41 goals, and that Kesler is back to being the prototypical, proverbial two-way-centre (25 goals a year, 65 points etc.) he has always known and projected to be in the NHL.

Probably right Dude.. though its hard to get a handle on just how good he is as he has always been 2nd line center and not had great wingers on his line.. Raymond is not Daniel Sedin by a long shot.. If he averages 25 goals he is about 8 goals a year better than Hank though Hank is a far better playmaker..Maybe both last year and this year are anomolies.. Last year for the "peak" and this year - because of injury recovery the "low".. Not sure about "Elite" but we have had a lot worse #1 centers.

dbr wrote:Even before Kesler's "anomaly" season he was 11th in scoring among centers..

The fact is that we know what kind of player Ryan Kesler is and even if he never scores 40 goals in a season again he's still a first line calibre center when healthy.

I disagree, Kes is not in the class of the prototypical ultra-skilled elite play making centre. I always liken a first line centre as someone who can make a play out of nothing, sort of like Hank, and set up teamates at will. Even though, Hank doesn't score, he has the vision and hockey sense that all great first line centre's possess, ie Joe Thornton who ain't a massive goal score himself. Kesler tends to play by himself at times, with a shoot first mentality to be put in that category, he isn't known as a great playmaker. As a two-way centreman, there is nobody better in the business, first line calibre? No, but definitely the top of the league at 2nd line calibre.

"I just want to say one word to you. Just one word. Are you listening? - Plastics." - The Graduate

RoyalDude wrote:I disagree, Kes is not in the class of the prototypical ultra-skilled elite play making centre. I always liken a first line centre as someone who can make a play out of nothing, sort of like Hank, and set up teamates at will. Even though, Hank doesn't score, he has the vision and hockey sense that all great first line centre's possess, ie Joe Thornton who ain't a massive goal score himself. Kesler tends to play by himself at times, with a shoot first mentality to be put in that category, he isn't known as a great playmaker. As a two-way centreman, there is nobody better in the business, first line calibre? No, but definitely the top of the league at 2nd line calibre.

So all your bitching, whining and moaning about these two guys over the past 6-8 weeks and now you are saying that Hank and Kes are near the top of the heap as 1st and 2nd line calibre centers.